


Tales of the Pulse: Backgrounds and Introductions

by Titan_MassMind



Series: Tales of the Pulse [1]
Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Bloodsports, F/M, Muscles, Original Character Death(s), Original Character(s), World-at-a-glance, female muscle growth, mini-giantess
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-15
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-04-25 02:55:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22261732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Titan_MassMind/pseuds/Titan_MassMind
Summary: In the year 2004, an otherwise unremarkable world, deep in a branch of Hypertime that seems to have been manufactured when the World Forger was on a FMG kick, the Titan Rite fused the preternatural embodiments of the Earth and Sun together into the two great Titan MassMinds.  The Rite required the willing sacrifice of almost every entity of magical knowledge or active control on the planet; it was enacted to stave off visions of the rise of a tribe of sadistic, super-muscled women known as Hunters.The only problem is that those visions showed what would happen if the Hunters were energized by some external source; at the time, the four strongest active Hunters were only mildly above the level of a kryptonian.  The excess magical energy unleashed by the Rite, known as the Pulse, transformed approximately one in every hundred thousand humans into the enormous, omega-level predators who would eventually be known as L-Hunters.  Other Tales of the Pulse will chronicle their rise; here, I'll stash little bits and pieces.
Series: Tales of the Pulse [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1602472





	1. Preface: The World in Her Image

_ My word stands _

_ My shadow covers _

For centuries after the Pulse, Warqueen Mandy, Proudest of the Prides, Savagery Sworn, maintained that her superior strength came from death and pleasure. Her opponent's death, and her orgasm. Right then, when it struck. When the Age of Heroes passed; when the time of villains was snuffed in favor of the monsters. Of the Leonid Hunters.

Even in the early Sworn years, her pink lips would smile with feral vice, and she'd purr: "He was big and burly and thought he was badass. Thought he'd make it up the Northern Shock Circuit all the way to the top. Thought he could take the 'little' six foot chick in her pink bow and faux-girly shit and look good for the crowd." The question was one of the few ways to distract the Warqueen at her ease-- but it also turned her Drives straight to the top.

Distracting a Warqueen, _ the _ Warqueen, by getting her nipples hard isn't really a great idea. Especially when you're in reach.

The memory still gives her quivers from toes to tight calves, from mega-quads to clenching core, shudders of stronger than super shoulders, then all the way along uncountable muscle fibers, along the mammoth mountains of her peaks, all the way down to her fingers. Long, elegant, ticking out the life of one kill among many. "He wasn't my first. Not even my first on the Circuit."

Memories follow the story, and the sweet slash of her smile scares even her own Sworn.

Memories, and the cruel laughter of a thirsting L-Hunter. "Not my first, but it wasn't my practice-- at first. I usually kept them alive, for a bit."

"More useful that way. More fun on their knees, too, you know? Thick or spindly, arrogant or cowards, the second time was always on their knees-- if I left them their knees."

The laugh swells up with each word, her own precious, perfect, pleasing joke on the world. That laugh, the deep laugh of her maturity rolling from her rock-hard abs and up her powerful pecs and out across bountiful breasts.

Not the giggle of her hunting years, in the wake of the Pulse. Something much worse, yet much more fulfilled.

Just as wicked in every clench and chuckle. "But the Pulse hit, you know? I didn't know my own strength." A coo. "Neither did he. Not for long, anyway."

Death and pleasure; Warqueen Mandy claimed she was the only Hunter to experience both in the Pulse, and that's why she was always so strong.

Only one L-Hunter ever has the desire and strength to invade her borders and make it credible, and Mandy is the mightier in combat, the fiercer of will, and her Crew tears her enemies to ribbons, leaving only carrion for a gift. Ocean Princess bitterly acknowledges Mandy's strength. Iron Discipline trains and trains, but she never catches up.

It's not just her so-called peers. The High Priestess and all the matriarchs of the Twisted Sisters want to recruit her. The merciless Shield of the Stone calls her the chiefest of devils.

Candy Mandy. With one exception, the strongest, fastest, toughest L-Hunter of the dawning age of the Royal Pridelands. Or of its proud succession, stretching out into the centuries. Only three of her daughters come close to her strength, and even the next three ruling queens measure themselves up to her. Her strength lasts, and leaves an impression on more than the wrecked bodies that fell from her embrace.

But then again, there is and evermore after always will be, the Stalker.

They were so close, and then for years, so far. Of course, who wants to be _ that _ close to either?


	2. Prelude: Variations on a Theme

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Candy Mandy was not the only unusual child of the Pulse. The Pulse played favorites, and if she was marked out as the singular, shining ideal to which the Leonid Hunters would aspire, there was... another. One who had been the width of a screen and the breadth of a lifetime away. One whose dark countenance would take the definition of Hunterdom that she created, and raise it to the greatest of monsters.
> 
> It's no surprise that their first few meetings would be clashes, but at the time of the Pulse...
> 
> One of them turned aside.

Moments before the Pulse

Another overhead light flickers, buzzes, and dies. Only one along the ceiling is left, over in the far corner. It's an incandescent, not even a fluorescent, and it's dying, too. The management was cheap from day one.

Even when it was first screwed in, the light didn't do much more than illuminate an aging, decades-old and ill-maintained weight machine.

Not even one of the meta-ready 'lifting sets haphazardly placed throughout the former storage space, current weight-room/green room for the Northern Shock Circuit's biggest draw: Candy Crush Time.

Nowadays there aren’t many hopefuls. There never are; the management is looking further and further afield. Just three in this underground, unnatural twilight; with a dying bulb for the moon and the glittering light of the flatscreen TV standing in for the stars.

There, hundreds of faces filled with bloodlust and just plain lust are screaming and stamping their feet. They’re almost indistinguishable, background outside the reinforced cage. The heavily reinforced cage.

The cameras can’t survive in there, so you have to see her through them. Big, brawny, busty-- Candy Mandy. Six feet of malicious feminine muscle with a serious kink for sexualized destruction and madonna-whore headfuckery.

See her roar back at the crowd, fists held high and huge shoulders pumping. She nods at them, pointing at herself, sweat glistening off her face-- her hyper-developed muscles-- her hyper-sized tits. See her standing there, foot on top of her competitor’s groin.

Victim, really-- emphasized as Mandy grinds her heel in enough to bring him screaming back to the waking world, really. She coos and giggles, and mocks his pain and prick both. It’s only when the crowd goes silent, their thirst for voyeuristic spectacle overflowing the brim-- then she kicks the poor bastard to the side of the cage, breaking the one rib she hadn’t already fractured.

The bots haul him away as she leans against her corner. Elbows back, burly biceps just a bit tight above them-- it’s the triceps she’s showing off for the lucky members of the crowd behind her. Well; the triceps, and that superbly sinuous, teardrop of perfection she calls an ass.

Just before it smothers her prey, generally.

Even the rubberized jobbers are terrified of Candy Mandy. Nigh-invulnerable thugs who are reduced to tears by the giggling sound of her voice as she puts you out. No one knows why she doesn't go on and up, but just surviving her is the Northern Circuit's ticket challenge.

They go a few quick rounds, the warm-ups, where she's not quite so horny. Then they refuse to come out of their locker rooms. It makes Mandy smile, and even the management isn't dumb enough to push Candy Mandy.

So the jobbers are done, with their slightly rearranged faces, their inflated muscles, and their stark terror of the most vicious woman in the world. Her dominance lasts long beyond their time in the ring. Most never even meet her eyes without a command.

Instead, there's one of the hopefuls staggering out there in the bright lights, already bruised and battered from one too many times through a Sucker Slam. A few too many seconds in a Sweetie Sleeper. Barely brought out of _ the _ Sugar Baby Scissors before his eyes stay shut forever.

There are two Circuit Breakers in the dark room now. One is benching weights in ton notations. Her shadows have a strange combination of hard angles and sinuous curves, a silhouette that covers the back wall, just like her head nearly brushes the ceiling when she stands. The other, nowhere near as tall, is doing stretches.

Just stretches. No reps, using none of the machines, and certainly not giving the larger any of the respect she deserves.

Like the little twit thinks that meta-powers, a big chest, and the guaranteed next up are the keys to beating Candy Mandy, all on their own. It still pisses the big one off-- the little wouldn't even accept her challenge for arm wrestling for nexts. "Chicken," she grunts at her rival in between reps.

The little shadow-- well, smaller-- doesn't respond. Even the darkness doesn't interrupt the steady stretches. There's something strange about this one. Creepy. Even the light doesn't enjoy coming too near, and even the big one knows her edge in height isn't matched by an equal edge in breadth. Not just shoulders-- deepness of the chest, thickness of the thighs, and something else.

Something worse, like whatever's behind that gaze, glued to the display on the near wall. On the prize, on the ring.

It burns, the force of that stare. Even around the edges. That gaze is why the bigger of the two hasn't just hauled off and given her rival an early nap. The big one's rather proud of her 'poker' sleeper holds.

Really, though, the whole place is a mess, and it's weird that it should be that way.

For a multibillion dollar underground metahuman fighting ring, the West Coast Shock Circuit is and always was fucking cheap, even with their "Circuit Breakers." These are super-hopefuls, crowd pleasers who've already fought their way up through the wringer, either in the bush leagues in the interior, or starting on the coast the hard way.

All of them are vicious, nasty metahuman fighters, well-paid and ill-tempered. At the very least each is super-strong and super-tough, and many of the worst are born metas who also juice on the very best illegal super-enhancers. You'd think they would be treated better.

But they are always told they can take work-environment complaints up with the Director. Naturally, no one ever does. And it's better than working for Roulette.

The Shock Circuit is one of the few meta fight rings that survived the Justice League and the Pan-Asia Defense Combine's last round of cleanups. And it confines itself mostly to California. Three circuits-- North, Central, and South, with tickets to the World Championships waiting for anyone who could get past Candy Mandy, Bouncer III, or the Kalifornia Killer, respectively.

There's a monitor-- the only piece of tech in the room not ten years old or more-- showing the fight. Neither Breaker thinks it's going to be much longer. The big one's pistoning three-digit benching isn't calming her down. Not her contempt, and not the hardness for the futa package in her loose fighter's pants.

The quiet is angering her almost as much as the disrespect, and she's already racked her bar when it happens.

The Pulse hits. The room is momentarily bright enough for the two figures to see each other, to take each other's measure. Then it is blinding, deafening, shaking. The air tastes like fire with the scent of...

Power.

Everyone feels it. Everyone feels the sudden burst of incalculable power. Like the incident when Ocean Princess's event horizon lab/weight room containment burst, but much, much worse.

Containment, after all, is never re-established.

The whole Earth vibrates, and she is not alone in her dance; eight minutes after, the daylight side will see the Sun itself writhe and swell and constrict and expand, resonating with the Pulse.

The Pulse is over in minutes.

And yet, the Pulse goes on forever.

It goes on and on, caught in the hearts of one-hundred and eleven-thousand, four-hundred and eighty two metahumans and potential metahumans. All of them are immediately growing in the aftermath of the Pulse. Their height and bulk swell to the very limits of the nightmare dreams of the meta-muscle fetishists.

It goes well beyond the fevered desires of the creepy ones, the ones who are banned from even the Shock Circuit audience..

No lesser creature's desire will ever constrain or taint or budge them again unto the Binding.

They grow with might. They grow!

They grow, and they grow. Up, and out. Mostly out.

Not just in mass. Not just in height. _ Power _. Metahumanity has spread over the globe further and faster than it has since the days of demigods and demons. Even those old champions, brought into the modern world, have been rivaled by the twentieth and twenty-first century's new Mighty.

The weakest woman transformed by the Pulse into a buff behemoth can slap a blue whale around and still have enough smack left over for a space shuttle or two.

The median are horrors who would collapse worlds simply colliding into each other.

The mightiest, like Candy Mandy?

There are no measurements. Other than those that apply to the incongruous enhancements to the busts, butts, and hips of those ladies, and other things besides. Whatever the Pulse is, it carries a sexuality to it that will be the despair-- and death and worse-- for many a former powerhouse.

It shows on the monitor, even though only one of the Circuit Breakers has the presence of mind to see it. Her change. Her ascension.

And the sacrifice.

Candy Mandy-- and the ring and the ceiling-- are covered in red, briefly. Her orgasm alone might have sealed the fighter's fate, an involuntary _ clench _of pre-Pulse super-muscles, but with her growth and her newfound power, she simply has no restraint.

Just her new breadth and her three meters of height probably would have popped the poor bastard. He won’t be the last to die from close contact with a Pulsed. Just the first.

Those messes evaporate quickly. The heat of the Pulse sears the fallen away, cleans the Pulsed. Makes of them the Hunters, though that name is for later, as the Pulse finishes its lethal apotheosis, and vanishes. The throb of its passage knocks all but one of its children to the ground.

That one isn't Candy Mandy. As far as she and everyone else knows for years to come, it was grow up, bulk out, cum like crazy, fall down, shake the earth.

Probably cum again, at that point.

The thunder of Candy Mandy's fall (and climax) shakes the entire arena. The last light in the Breakers' weight room explodes. It doesn't matter; the Pulsed see on a spectrum so broad it's hard to call it sight. Except that their other senses have expanded as well. 

Two Hunters, in close proximity. One already at the point of violence. The other, violence personified.

They grow. The larger shadow was big enough to begin with. The first rough sounds of overstretched fabric are lost in the moment of the Pulse.

Within seconds after, the too-tight outfit squeals like Candy Mandy's victim can't. The larger one thrashes around on the bench; her shoulders knock the rack away-- shatter it. The heavy bar slams forward; in one of those weird coincidences, the ungodly mass of the plates remains bolted on-- briefly.

She grows, the power of the Pulse strengthening her from the bones out; sinew and thews rapidly included. She'd had a metahuman set of secondary reinforcement muscles, but tertiaries that both strengthen and permit seemingly impossible maneuvers follow. Striations re-map, tighter, more efficient-- but more!.

Arms swell to match the expanded shoulders, and her sleeves tear off, then disintegrate over the sculpted and re-sculpted _ mass _, but they're not alone. Her chest expands. Her breasts follow.

The impact of the bar into the soft tissue should be painful. It should be debilitating, the slap of something like steel hitting naked, sensitive flesh lost in the far-too concentrated force.

The pain isn’t even a light tickle to the new forest of pleasure-only nerves as she cums all over the ceiling and soaks the bench with her pussy's delight. She's enjoyed both sides in the past; there will never be anything like this again. What could equal the Pulse?

As her abs tighten and grow, legs and other parts lengthening, the bar wraps around a suddenly impervious pair of naked, still-growing tits. It lasts no longer than her top, the lock on the plates suddenly inadequate to hold the plates back. They go flying; the bar splinters, adding further shrapnel.

The larger shadow never particularly cared about pronouns before the Pulse. She enjoyed her tits; she enjoyed her pussy; she enjoyed other people panting and squirming over her cock. For anything else, 'she' worked, and anyone who objected, well. Nice people don't become Circuit Breakers.

The cock in question now would take more than squirming to fit. Veined, yet beautiful, slightly curved and so fat-- the Pulse itself was enough to get her off, the tickling destruction of the bar kept her going-- she can see it all in her mind, and it almost makes her as horny as the Pulse's inspiration about what to do to the object of her frustrations.

As she makes it back to her feet, nothing remains of the costume. It was expensive, to say the least. In the dark, she sees herself, so huge she has to crouch or slam her head through the ceiling, muscular legs spread and bent.

She's changed in so many ways, not all of them visible signs of power. She was a little squat at the waist before; now, the lush swell of her own hips arouse her-- visibly. Her glorious ass is far juicier than it used to be-- and that inspires her.

For all that the Pulsed are less than one in a hundred thousand, they wake up very close to each other. The results are often explosive. The large shadow certainly intends that it be so.

The Pulsed are filled with more than power. Some, like Candy Mandy, are used to urges so strong they're almost muscle groups of their own-- strong, hardwired desires for sex, sadism, and in many cases masochism as well. Some are not. Some experienced some of the urges; others, felt nothing like it before.

What the larger shadow wakes up to is not an urge. It's not what humans call a sex drive, either. Humans don't _ have _ a sex drive. They don't need it to survive.

The large-- immense-- figure is now starving. If she does not feed the drives that run through her like blood, like breath, like existence, she will first go (more) insane, then start to weaken. Beings who could meditate and outlive trees before needing a mouthful of food will die if they do not satisfy three drives:

A true sex drive. This hits most of the newly Pulsed first. The orgasmic release of the Pulse is wondrous, but now it must be paid for. They grow, and they must _ fuck. _

Sadism. Not merely the sexual kind. The Pulsed test, often to destruction.

A cruel curiosity awakens in them. To the Pulsed, the glittering artificial world of humanity and heroes is so thin, like tissue paper stretched to the breaking point. It's so easy to just reach out and _ tear _.

Masochism. Again, not merely the sexual kind, though the three drives swirl together. Many Hunters, especially those who Pulse alone or with only the Weak around them, will feel a light starvation on this Hunger, and overcompensate into others, instead. There are many reasons why the Pulsed generations are a little crazier than their children.

Here, three Hunters rise in swift succession. All will live; none will starve. Candy Mandy's third drive will be fed through the loving irritation, vicious sparing, and occasional knock-down, drag-out brawl with Dragon Lian. The other two Hunters must find their own ways to suffer.

The Pulsed are found odd clumps. Though only some of the ancient families stayed in contact, even those whose inheritance is hidden completely seem to be drawn to each other. Most importantly, the Pulsed seemed to be drawn together in groupings of equals.

Candy Mandy is a nexus of several of these groups. Her best friend and tag-team partner, Dragon Lian, also got a prime piece of the Pulse’s power. So did both of the fighters waiting to take their chance in Candy Crush Time.

The bigger one was fed up even before the insane and rapacious drives of her enhanced body hit.

The smaller one wanted something more.

Then the Pulse hit.

So. As Candy Mandy staggers to her feet amidst the cheers and screams of the Circuit's high-paying audience, the two hopefuls clash.

Height isn't everything, in the post-Pulse world.

It means a lot, though.

With speed to make the Flash pale, they clash.

Mandy's only thoughts (other than "Yummy") were of Lian and their mothers. She burst through to the surface and was gone in moments. The sounds behind her were as far beneath her notice as panicked squeals for mercy between her thighs-- no, even less. At least the squeals could entertain.

Only one shadow walked away-- not to the fight, not to the ring, but out and away.

Only the one emerged.

Out, into the changed Earth.

\---

The Pulse changed the whole world. Triggering the hundred thousand or so Hunters was only the most obvious result.

That alone would be far more than human and metahuman civilization could endure. Few survivors, whether Hunter or one of the little, scurrying sapients around their waists, had much time to look up at an empty sky.

It changed nonetheless.

Above, the heavens shifted; navigation by starlight became subtly off. Most people didn't have the energy to speculate; even astronomers and their ilk only noted the change of the position of the stars in passing.

Or rather, for those who knew their science, that the position of the Sun, and hence the Earth, was changing relative to the Milky Way.

No one, not even the most iconoclastic astronomer, had the wherewithal to panic about that. And no one save the few survivors of the Titan Rite even understood what was happening to the Earth itself. 

The Pulse all but destroyed every society on the surface of the Earth, and no few deep within the crust. Above or underground, Hunters-- and their far fouler rivals, the Stealers-- found few limits to their reach.

_ Sky mocks us _

_ Seas reject us _

_ Soil and stone resist us _

_ Resistance makes us strong _

Even the undersea realms were changed forever. While the Pulse skipped the Atlanteans, their cousins, and their competitors throughout the seas, they were nonetheless vulnerable.

The Pulsed swim like torpedos, at a minimum, after all.

Faced with external devastation, Mera and Arthur Curry reluctantly order a complete blackout of communications between Atlantis and the surface world. Filled with guilt, but placing his people first, Aquaman initiates the first of many sub-sea sinkings, while Mera continues her investigations into the true nature of the changed Earth.

What she finds out about the changed relationship between sea and land nearly drives her insane, but she is too strong to betray her people or her family thus.

Atlantis itself and numerous other outposts, as well as the homes of all but the most nomadic merpeople, were drilled into the ocean floor, and the entrances and exits hidden with paranoia and magic.

Illusion can fool a Hunter, if it's good enough. And the best sorcerers still living were highly concentrated in the myriad people of the seas.

War was the only option.

\---

An aside:

Not every Hunter finds death a pleasant spice for sex. Some reject it utterly; some limit it to an extremely rare treat. But sometimes, regardless of whether or not a Hunter feels like expending a life for her own arousal…

Sometimes, an end is necessary to begin.


	3. Hungry Hungry Hunters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Discussion of the Hungers, one of the main factors determining the devastating effects that the Pulse has, changing society and the destiny of the Earth forever. They need sex like humans need food; they need to hurt and to dominate like humans need to breathe...
> 
> And being hurt and dominated is their thirst. 
> 
> The median Hunter requires thirty orgasms per day, to constantly jockey for position and primacy, and to periodically suffer some form of defeat, agony, fear or control. The units for those last two are hard to quantify, but most Hunters intimately understand how much they require-- after all, they can feel the Hungers tearing at their body, their sanity, and their reality. The constant urge to satiate, and then to overfill to ward against a drought, drives them to fuck, to dominate, and to fight.
> 
> And for that, at least, humans make such good... Tools.
> 
> If you have any questions about the Hungers, please ask them at https://www.deviantart.com/titanmassmind/art/Interlude-1-Hungry-Hungry-Hunters-871722597 and I will try to update here with significant answers.

While a Hunter retains her soul-- and indeed none can take it from her, immune to all forms of possession-- the immensely powerful body and mentality granted by the Pulse would sorely tax a saint. In fact, a saint elevated to the ranks of the Hunters would find herself quickly either faced with a profound starvation beyond the limits any fast could prepare her for.

Or she would need to set aside the bonds of sainthood to save what few dregs of goodwill she might.

The first issue is one of empathy. A human, or even most metahumans, is no harder to pop for a Hunter than a bubble floating along the surface of a nice bath, and usually easier to pin. The sheer amount of nanoscopic care required simply to avoid finding herself alone and surrounded by rubble wears on the ultra-fast mind of a Hunter constantly even as it is also reflexive.

A Hunter knows herself completely, and even reflexive actions include instantaneous, conscious control. This knowledge is complicated by Hunter territoriality and aggressive behavior, but those are simply lenses through which the Hunter views herself. Finally, as a result of what will be called Drives and Hungers (see below), Hunter-Hunter interaction is, even when friendly, belligerent and percussive.

This makes positively interacting with humanity challenging, to say the least.

Even former heroes, volunteers, first responders, true-called priests of gentle faiths-- even those who once lived lives of great self-sacrifice and devotion are suddenly faced with a challenge that actually matters on their scale. How to force themselves to treat humans, metahumans, and their ilk as anything other than the ephemeral phantoms of their own imagination.

Just as often, it's not even contempt they feel to those they regard as inferior. Even if they do not see the weaker as contemptible, they quickly intuit that if they do not act freely, they will be constrained from making the world-- or even their own personal world-- better.

Functionally, each Hunter doesn't just know she has a superior solution to the humans around her, humans have less comparative intellect and ability to effect plans than a domestic pet.. While having all the permanence of a single line drawn in sand low tide. This can make it  _ very  _ difficult for the Hunter to treat her protectees-- or property-- as mattering sufficiently to be included in her decision-making process as anything other than a subject.

This stems naturally from the same yawning gulf in capabilities; a Hunter must protect those around them not only from their own power, but that of other Hunters. This is coupled with a territoriality urge that makes them both fiercely possessive and fiercely protective of as much as they think they can hold. Virtually compelled to protect and nurture the clusters of civilization they claim and build, they must  _ also _ deal with actual, flat-out compulsions.

And those have far more long-reaching consequences.

These compulsions are called the three Drives or three Hungers. A Hunter who feels that her Sex-Drive is starving (not common, admittedly) will find her hand moving towards her clit, think of everything in even  _ more _ sexualized terms than normal, her body moving to grab people and begin to fuck them almost before even her highly enhanced mind. Each Drive is an actual, real, survival requirement, not just a powerful urge.

The First Drive is the Sex Drive. Sex is no mere motivator for a Hunter. The continuance of the species means little to nigh-immortals who will live centuries yet have but few more children than humans, their bodies often rejecting pregnancy as dangerous and their eggs nigh-impermeable to even the most virile sperm.

Instead, sex is a literal necessity for them to survive. Should a Hunter not satiate her sexual desire, she will go mad with the hunger for it. Even the few limits of a Hunter-- bound to the letter and spirit of her word, treating family as inviolable, and eventually, even the well-being of those dearest to her will become meaningless, and she will commit all manner of atrocities for a single climax.

Should she manage to control the madness and  _ keep _ starving, her strength will ebb-- in a relative sense, of course-- and then she will die. Of course, generally, they are able to feed themselves, the means always being at hand, as it were. But such weak meals will ill-satisfy the hunger her sex drive seeks to feed. Like a human struggling to breathe in a poorly circulated room, she will become agitated, irritable, and her decision-making will soon be impaired. Survival continues, but an outside observer would think her on the edge of starvation.

The vast majority of Hunters require between twenty to forty orgasms per day, with some Outliers on the higher end requiring sixty to  _ one hundred _ , and some on the lower end requiring as few as ten. Like all Drives, a "glut" is possible, but is only of moderate efficiency and even stuffed "to the gills" on sex would probably still requiring a quarter to a half of the number of usual orgasms each day. Masturbatory climaxes only count as half; no matter the gulf between cumming with someone else and making yourself orgasm in terms of  _ pleasure _ , someone else has to be involved.

Only the most intelligent of Hunters who are  _ also _ willing to perceive the Hungers as a necessary component of their lives discover that the gluts can be used to temporarily gain more power. Carla "Moto-Lita" Delgado, Tanya "Power" Spears, and several members of the Hundred found on the Indian Subcontinent realize that by overstuffing, especially the Masochism Drive, they can temporarily increase the amount of power they have to gain through hyperflexion. It is not, however, easy, nor will it change a starkiller into a galaxy-crusher.

But it may turn someone who could smash a yellow dwarf into someone who could re-seal a black hole.

Prior to Pulsing (see Growing Up Hunter, to follow), Hunters do not feel a compulsion to sex, but are usually sexual as would be appropriate for their age group. It's worth noting that a Hunter who  _ doesn't  _ engage in at least age-appropriate exploration is setting themselves up for a harsh post-Pulse bout of starving. As a result, from the first post-Pulse generation on, they are generally raised alongside children in the same age cohort who will be most likely to be their starter servants when they grow to full womanhood.

Subadult Hunters (unPulsed Hunters between 18 to 22) still don't  _ require  _ sex but are generally kept well-stocked with concubines by doting, if protective parents. A subadult Hunter who's had a decent if not necessarily proportional sex life to her mothers' general requirements will generally come out of the Pulse well-fed, for sex at least. Subadults also interact with Hunter compulsions strangely; although Hunters can recognize them  _ as _ mature, they will still not be very sexually intriguing, if at all.

The rewiring of Hunter consciousness seems to include a number of similar safeguards to insure some form of continuation, and the care of the young.

The Second Drive is the Sadism Drive. Like the Third Drive, it is not entirely accurately named. Acts of dominance over another will count as much as simply causing pain. The terror that a Hunter's slaves feel for her counts as something of both, and is why territorial rulers often can think more clearly than their vassals or renegades.

It is sometimes shorthanded to suffering caused by the Hunter to others.

In any event the Second Drive has the largest requirements of any Drive and is therefore one of the most active Hungers and motive-forces on Hunter society. If the Sex Hunger is closest to an actual hunger, the Sadism Drive is more like  _ breathing. _ It has breathtaking consequences.

Almost every interaction a Hunter has with someone else will be an attempt to establish or exploit dominance. Even relatively "vanilla" sex, even with other Hunters. Even  _ friendly  _ interactions.

Hunters hit each other hard enough to leave bruises in greetings between friends. Lieges enforce their dominance physically, mentally, socially and sexually over their sworn vassals. Diplomatic interactions split along hierarchical lines and when individual Hunters are in the same rough company of power, they will clash, sometimes physically, without breaking diplomatic norms, to figure out who gets to set the rules of order as it were.

Unlike the First Hunger, the Sadism Drive is not easily quantified by means that make sense to most humans. It is proportional to the strength of the Hunter herself, those she is dominating/hurting/harming/etc., the amount of domination/pain/etc., and the success of that action. Even something like maternal affection or justly ruling a given polity can feed the Second Drive, and being feared by people in an entirely different timeline can feed in unexpected ways.

Not a  _ lot _ , unless you managed to make a whole world fear you continuously, but still.

Even parenting is far more physical than all but the most lackadaisical or least caring Hunters would permit humans, but this has more to do with pre-loading the Third Drive than it does to do with the parents' sadism. Child and subadult Hunters don't seem to require dominating or hurting others, though triumph at the very least is necessary to avoid deficit after Pulsing. However, if not satisfactorily given opportunities to Drive-feed, they will become increasingly hostile, belligerent, and domineering.

A Hunter who has no one around can achieve Sadism Hunger feeding through self-discipline and anything from resistance-based exercise or tearing into their own skin/scarification. It is therefore possible to hold off Sadism Starvation when alone but this will rapidly become one of the most desperate needs the Hunter has when they are returned to the company of others. In many ways, it is most responsible for the "madness" phase of starvation; the desperate urge to be viciously, brutally cruel, to challenge one's peers, superiors, and even those beneath her to fight and bleed or even kill.

This tends to get the Hunter swatted down-- if her peers and superiors don't see anything worth saving in her at all, their response may be very final, and even if they  _ do _ , it's going to hurt. The distinction between Masochism feeding and Sadism feeding solo is sometimes very hard to tell as a result.

The Third Drive is the Masochism Drive. Like the Second Drive, this does not actually mean just pain. Being dominated by another, being conquered by another, or even the unsuccessful attempts of others to dominate or control the Hunter will feed her-- albeit less. For most Hunters, the Third Drive is as easy as the Sex Drive, but with far fewer requirements.

That is to say-- the amount of pain and/or suffering and/or domination and/or attempts to inflict those that are required by a given Hunter is perhaps the least of any Drive to satiate. However, it is one of the hardest to self-satiate without an actual challenge. The suffering of Drive Starvation, for example, feeds a Hunter even less than if someone else makes her sad, and certainly doesn't feed enough to stave off starvation in the long run.

Furthermore, it seems to be something that unPulsed Hunter children  _ require. _ Unlike human children, for whom corporal punishment is often outright counterprodctive, Hunter children will grow restless and unhappy if they don't aren't fighting with their peers, and being smacked off a wall by one of their mothers makes them feel loved, not bullied.

Of course, after the Pulse, any child born of a Hunter will range from powerful metahuman bricks, to "strong for a kryptonian, possibly even exceeding weaker Hunters," depending on the parent. The sting from a swat disappears in seconds, and literally bouncing into a wall is more likely to get a cheer and a demand to do it again than to result in crying.

The Masochism Drive therefore, while universally the weakest Drive, is the one that most fundamentally shapes all Hunter politities, cultures, and, ultimately, their global civilization. Between the power of Hunter promises and their instinctive detection, and the M-Drive, feudal structures become not only possible, but preferable, especially since a more powerful Hunter is likely to be smarter, more perceptive, and more socially effective in the first place. That there is a detection mechanism for both reliability and the upkeep, in the form of Oathstench, as well simply seals the deal.

What is  _ less _ understood for many years, however, is how Masochism-Drive starvation affects the Hundred-- and the Outliers. Usually better capable of hiding their Hunger-states as a result of their transcendental abilities, the great monsters and predators of Hunter-kind not only have vast M-Drives in the first place… it's very hard to satiate them at  _ all. _ Perhaps the only great Polity to have full Masochism Drive stability is the Princessdoms.

The Princess Pride is composed of two Prides that unified-- the original Elemental Princess Prides (Ocean, Flame, Thunder, and Quake Princesses), and the Nerima Quartet-- Rankoma Saotome-Tendo and her three wives, the Trio-- Elder/Griever/Kasumi, Middle/Witch/Nabiki, and Younger/Basher/Akane. The Nerima Quartet was a forked Pride in the first place; with three non-married siblings marrying the futa Marital Artist who fused the names of her male and female halves much like her body fused post-Pulse.

As a result, like all forked prides, the balance of power in the Princesses does  _ not _ favor Ocean Princess, the dominant wife of all seven other women in the Pride. It usually only requires four or five of her wives to overpower her, dominate her, and keep her fed. As a result, the Princesses are among the Outliers most close to their pre-Pulse personalities.

Of the others, their numbers range from as many as five singletons and one small pride to one single, one small pride, and one median-sized pride. As a result of this spread, and the fact that Masochism Drive feeding requires either some element of risk, or trusting someone else to put you into subspace….

Many of the original Outliers  _ starve _ on a regular basis. It drives the desperation and determination of Lupe Lòpez and the tragedy of Iron Discipline and Doctor Elixir. And of the publicly known Outliers around the time of the Pulse, none is so hard to feed nor so erratic in personality as Candy Mandy, Savagery Sworn…

And the single most powerful woman on the changed Earth-- possibly, in all reality.

\---

All Hungers feed, in a way, into the Sex Drive. It is extremely pleasurable to satiate the M-Drive, almost absurdly so in some cases, and a so-called M-Gasm will generally count as a full "involves another person" orgasm. Second Drive satiation is pleasurable, but generally only counts as a masturbatory orgasm unless the one dominated or hurt is of comparable or greater capability.

It is not much of a stretch, therefore, to say that the Drives are even more shaping to Hunter civilization than the empathy gap.

Many heroes will undergo the Pulse. Some go mad just to start. Some attempt to resist long enough to go insane in small doses. These are fewer than a human might believe. To be a Hunter is to have total awareness of the self and an intellect vast beyond the sum potential of the human race. Computations happen so fast that time seems to stop, and are done with perfect sensory data.

The ones who don't start mad but become so later, often lose their minds to the inexorable conclusions of the Hunter existence. A Hunter who tries to be heroic will have their requirement for suffering fed well, constantly throwing themselves against their own limitations and the cruelties of their peers, which is a source of strength, as the suffering drive is not otherwise often well fed until Hunters form feudal webs and struggle as nations and armies, not just individuals. But they  _ must _ find ways to satisfy their requirements for sex, and cruelty-- or at the least savagery.

Knowing that the end result of your own self-denial is likely to result in failing to uphold your standards, failing to accomplish the heroism you're driven to do, going mad with Drive starvation and becoming a worse threat than even someone who indulges, or, at the pinnacle of true willpower, simply to waste away and then die when you have powers mighty enough to challenge the universe is… maddening.

For most, feeding one's Drives becomes a subject for the high-stakes art of the possible. It's a bitter pill for someone who has become otherwise an ultimate expert in achieving the impossible. Which in turn, feeds the Masochism Drive, of course, another reason why former heroes (and honorable villains) are often well fed and powerful, once they find their acceptability equilibrium.

Choose and cultivate  _ these _ personal slaves, villains and the unworthy. Exercise your need to rape and dominate on them. Some will choose fewer sex slaves, with tighter requirements, but become far more intensely wicked with the few you choose. Choose more sex slaves with less care for 'worthiness', and perhaps you can soften the blow. But not all Drives have the same magnitude.

The more powerful a Hunter is, the more powerful her Drives. There is internal variation; a given Hunter may simply be more horny than others around her; another may find only the most pure and complete exercise of sadistic power over another's life will satiate-- and still another may be almost sweet in comparison to her lovers, but only if she also periodically murders a lover with her orgasms.

But that variation is centered around a steady rise the further a Hunter moves towards the top of the species. Those who are weaker than the median are spared the worst of it, of course, but in many cases are less able to resist and can claim less territory, forcing them to be less choosy. Ultimately, however, the choices that the weaker Hunters make are influenced by their peers, their oaths, and the cultures around them.

By and large, the character of the societies that the Hunters grow from the ashes of the Heroic Age are determined by their absolutely most powerful women, and those with enough might to not be swept in their wake. And it is these Hunters who feel the constant predatory urge and the desire to clash so that they may be tested the hardest. Not to mention the constant need for sex!

What happens when one of those powerful women wakes up after the Pulse, starving as though she had never even known what food was until her ascension was completed? They change the world around them, forever. But sometimes, even Hunter abilities cannot change the simple facts of availability of resources.

Sometimes, they wake up with only a very few means of satiation, indeed.


End file.
